Matheus is the founder of Tint. They’re doing some cool stuff with embedded insurance products and are backed by Y Combinator and QED. They have a fully-remote global team.
This week, Matheus takes us to a crucial time when his business was in the midst of fundraising.
His daughter was just about to be born. And, at the same time, there were just 4 months of runway left.
To add to the stress, his co-founder was also expecting his first child.
Both wanted paternity leave. And both wanted to keep their business afloat.
The company was in a crucial stage.
They had failed a seed round months before. Which raised questions about whether this round would be successful.
Matheus was also the only person doing this side of the work. The rest of the team was in sales or engineering.
The pressure was high. And Matheus knew that if he took paternity leave, the fundraising round wouldn’t make it to the end.
Matheus and his co-founder had a good relationship. Despite the 9-hour time difference between him in San Francisco and his co-founder in Paris — they communicated well.
So they were already having this conversation.
What needed to change to accommodate all of this?
Understanding priorities.
First — they had to be realistic.
It was not worth it to do fundraising at this time.
Because they had already been rejected in a round, Matheus was no stranger to the process. He knew what they needed — and he knew they didn’t have it right now.
To keep the business running — they had to go all in on sales. Ensuring their value to their customers and therefore, getting more sales.
Second — they were both going to take paternity leave.
With the risk that they might not have a business to come back to.
What inspired this difficult decision?
Matheus’ wife was also a founder and knew how important the business was to him.
But she had to take time out from her business — she didn’t have a choice.
And she wanted him to do the same to spend time with his daughter.
Although they had many conversations about how much time he should take, they were both about to experience a huge change in their lives — parenthood.
In the pressure of it all, Matheus had a personal breakthrough.
Family always comes first.
While his business was very much a part of him — it should never come before his child and wife.
In this episode, we talk about
- How hard it was for Matheus to have this breakthrough
- What has changed for Matheus since he had this realisation
- Why he would never do things differently if he had the chance today
Matheus returned to work, grateful that he could.
Both he and his co-founder took a calculated risk with their business. But the learnings they took from that risk were much more powerful.